Australia has become the world’s third largest Toyota 86 market, with over 6000 units sold locally since its June 2012 launch.

Despite our relatively small population and one million per year new car market (which includes commercial and fleet sales), Australian’s love of the Toyota 86 has helped put us above markets like the UK and Canada.

In the last 12 months Japan has accounted for 30,000 Toyota 86 sales, with the US following closely at 21,400. Australia sits third (6,096) with UK and Canada at around 2400.

In total, over 70,000 Toyota 86s – which are all built in Subaru’s Gunma factory in Japan alongside the BRZ – have been sold worldwide.

“Australian motorists have bought approximately eight per cent of all 86 sports cars delivered around the world since its debut last year,” Toyota Australia’s executive director sales and marketing Tony Cramb said.

“The success of the 86 demonstrates that Australians love their cars and they love Toyota – and this car enables them to indulge both those passions,” he said.

With global supply heavily restricted last year, Australian dealers sold 2047 86s (from August to December), a number which has almost doubled in the first half of this year (4049). Demand continues to outstrip supply.

The success of the Toyota 86 in Australia has been a combination of the car’s intrinsic attributes – excellent ride and handling, power to weight ratio, rear-wheel drive – and its $29,990 starting price, which has remains the same 12 months on.

If taken out of the Toyota family, the Toyota 86 single-handedly outsold all cars from brands such as Lexus, Fiat, Chrysler, Volvo, Renault, Opel and Peugeot. It also outsold the Toyota Aurion. It would sit, as its own franchise, in the top 20 for brand volume so far in 2013.

“It is a powerful reminder of Toyota’s sports-car heritage. The last time a Toyota sports car sold more than 5000 in a year was in 1982 with Celica, while the highest Supra sales were 707 in 1984 and the best year for MR2 was 1990 with 483 sales.” Mr Cramb said.

The Toyota 86 is powered by a Subaru-derived 2.0-litre boxer engine with 147kW and 205Nm of torque, available with either a six-speed manual or automatic transmission.

While its Subaru BRZ twin includes free servicing for three years or up to 60,000km in its dearer $37,150 starting price, the 86 is covered under Toyota’s capped-price servicing program with four scheduled services priced at $170 each.